Athletes View on 10 AM competition

ice coverage · Feb 10, 2018

el henry said:
... the Knierims have said they have no problem with the schedule. They have my respect

As a fan of the Knierims :ghug:

, I am genuinely curious as to what they have said about early morning practices. Where should I look to find out?

[Not a complaint but a reality (at least for me): The Olympics are exciting and fun, but I find it even more impossible :hopelessness: than usual to keep up with articles, social media, videos, etc.]

Meanwhile, I will add that on the first day of the team event (Friday in Korea), practice/warm-up began at: 6:30 am for men. 7:50 am for pairs (still early, but not quite as early).

On the second day of the team event (Sunday in Korea), practice/warm-up began at: 6:00 am for dance :bow:

. 7:00 am for ladies. 8:00 am for pairs.

ETA:

Kana's Instagram story showed that she was out of bed by 3:40 am today (Sunday in Korea). And curling her hair soon after 4:00 am.
The schedule is what it is, but I felt for her.
I have experienced work schedules requiring me to be on the job by 3 or 4 am local time for a limited number of days or weeks [sometimes when many times zones away from home]. Twas never easy for me.

travelbug · Feb 10, 2018

Adam was just interviewed on NBCSn w/ Scott Hamilton and Liam (?) and among LOTS of other things was asked about early am starts.

He said this is the first time he's gotten to a competition site so early, which he said he's never done before, and that he has been training well all week and that it's made a huge difference.

He said he feels so ready laying in his bed and they could call him any time of day or night to go to the arena and he'd be like "bring me my skates, bring my costume, let's do it!"

Liam: "So you don't have a problem with the early starts?

Adam (total hand snap type thing): "Make it earlier!"

Winnie_20 · Feb 10, 2018

I don't get the complaints.

In Helsinki the earliest practices started at 6 am.
And competitions at 10.50 and 11.05 am. Please don't tell me that one hour makes *all* the difference in the world. :rolleye:

(on a personal level, I hate it, but that's because when I actually thought with the Olympics being in Korea, I could watch figure skating during the day. How naive I was back then...)

rikaquegira · Feb 10, 2018

travelbug said:
Adam was just interviewed on NBCSn w/ Scott Hamilton and Liam (?) and among LOTS of other things was asked about early am starts.

He said this is the first time he's gotten to a competition site so early, which he said he's never done before, and that he has been training well all week and that it's made a huge difference.

He said he feels so ready laying in his bed and they could call him any time of day or night to go to the arena and he'd be like "bring me my skates, bring my costume, let's do it!"

Liam: "So you don't have a problem with the early starts?

Adam (total hand snap type thing): "Make it earlier!"

Now that's the effing spirit!!!!

treblemakerem · Feb 10, 2018

I don't get the complaints. 10AM sounds like a pretty good time to me. They had swimming events starting at midnight during the summer Olympics. Now that was crazy. Honestly don't figure skaters usually practice early in the morning? Not sure why a later time is really better. It's not like the event is starting at 6AM. I grew up an Irish dancer and competed at the world championships. Competitions started at 8am and would last all day long. Three rounds in one day. So you had to warm up three times in the day. It was normal to still be dancing at 7 or 8pm if you made the final round. And this was the same for regionals, Nationals, etc. I would have loved to start at 10 am lol.

pearly · Feb 10, 2018

Winnie_20 said:
I don't get the complaints.

In Helsinki the earliest practices started at 6 am.
And competitions at 10.50 and 11.05 am. Please don't tell me that one hour makes *all* the difference in the world.

(on a personal level, I hate it, but that's because when I actually thought with the Olympics being in Korea, I could watch figure skating during the day. How naive I was back then...)

A lot goes into it. Was it the same event that had practice at 6 am and started at 11? Or did the skaters at 11 am have their official practice the day before? Official hotels are usually walking distance or a short bus ride from the competition venue. There are also more than 10 skaters so if you practice in the first group you still have at least three groups to get ready and mentally prepare for your event.

pearly · Feb 10, 2018

treblemakerem said:
I don't get the complaints. 10AM sounds like a pretty good time to me. They had swimming events starting at midnight during the summer Olympics. Now that was crazy. Honestly don't figure skaters usually practice early in the morning? Not sure why a later time is really better. It's not like the event is starting at 6AM. I grew up an Irish dancer and competed at the world championships. Competitions started at 8am and would last all day long. Three rounds in one day. So you had to warm up three times in the day. It was normal to still be dancing at 7 or 8pm if you made the final round. And this was the same for regionals, Nationals, etc. I would have loved to start at 10 am lol.

Skaters do practice early, but not all Olympic level skaters do. With status also come better ice times. I was a skater and have been through both 6 am practices (not doing quads!) and World Championships. Better schedule and more time to do your thing and get ready mean the world.

musicfan80 · Feb 10, 2018

Arriba627 said:
^^^It's funny you would say that, because when people were talking about all the skating hype, all I could think of was "what channel are you watching?!" And I have NBC cable and the Olympic Channel, in addition to NBC. I only saw advertisements for skiing, snowboarding, hockey, and maybe a little bit of figure skating. I probably noticed that because I love all the stuff like luge and sledding and noticed there wasn't anything for those events. Shaun and Lindsey have been everywhere!

Well, NBC right now is chacking the Ladies SP warmup + the first two skates because of a taped slopestyle snowboarding final. Yes, an American (Red Gerard) won the gold, but what does that tell about what most Americans really want to watch during primetime?

ice coverage · Feb 10, 2018

Worth mentioning that the competition arena at Worlds at least twice has had a roomful of beds set up for skaters to get some rest or even a nap.

I do remember specifically for at least one of those years, the arena was at a great distance from the hotel.

I'm guessing that maybe extra layers of OWG security are partly what makes it impossible for skaters to have time to return to the hotel after practice/warm-up on competition mornings??

Arriba627 · Feb 10, 2018

musicfan80 said:
Well, NBC right now is chacking the Ladies SP warmup + the first two skates because of a taped slopestyle snowboarding final. Yes, an American (Red Gerard) won the gold, but what does that tell about what most Americans really want to watch during primetime?

Definitely. And I have friends who can't wait for the skiing. I was happy to see a few skating features on the TODAY show.

el henry · Feb 10, 2018

ice coverage said:
As a fan of the Knierims , I am genuinely curious as to what they have said about early morning practices. Where should I look to find out?

.....

I feel :hopelessness: I can't find the quote. I usually hope that I don't just make things up, but right now I'll need to say I misremembered. :confused2:

But I did find this quote from the Knierims about the fact that they are, out of necessity, skating so many programs:

"Now, they're eager for the team free skate on Monday, and then for the full pairs event next week. It's a lot of programs in a short period of time, to which both of them shrugged.
'We'll do 10 programs if they ask us to,' he [Chris] said. 'It's the Olympics.' "

https://sports.yahoo.com/knierims-rescue-us-opening-day-olympic-team-event-070438705--spt.html

CaroLiza_fan · Feb 11, 2018

I have to be honest, I was shocked when I saw that the figure skating competitions were starting at 10am.

Logic would say to me "schedule the outdoor competitions for the morning, so that you have more time to play with if the weather is bad; and schedule the indoor competitions for the afternoon and evening, as the weather won't affect them."

Like, the Women's Slopestyle Snowboarding Qualification that was supposed to start an hour ago ended up being delayed, and then rescheduled for 10am tomorrow because of very strong winds. If it had been scheduled for earlier in the day, they might have got it run before the weather deteriorated.

Actually, this is a bad example, because the Women's Qualification couldn't have been held in the morning because the Men's Qualification was being held in the morning. But, you get my point anyway.

The advantage of having figure skating in the afternoon is that the skaters would not have to get up at silly o'clock for morning practice; and the competitions won't be in the middle of the night in Europe, where most of the people who want to watch are likely to be. (Just think of how many skaters there are from Europe, and then think of their extended families who didn't go to Korea, and you'll start to see what I'm getting at).

To me, it is preferable for the viewers to be deprived of sleep (or have weird sleeping patterns) than the skaters. Because we don't have to keep fully awake for doing a routine in a pretty important competition later in the day.

But, hey! Trying to get more viewers in North America seems to matter more than the competitors. And matter more than keeping the core viewers.

CaroLiza_fan

fullmetalflamingo · Feb 11, 2018

I honestly don't see the problem. In the lower levels of USFSA and ISI competition, competitors (both kids and adults) routinely have ridiculously early start times in order to get everyone time on the ice for a single-day competition. I've definitely had many competition/travel-to-competition-and-then-compete days that started at 5 AM or earlier.

Sam-Skwantch · Feb 11, 2018

I’m surprised an early start isn’t more welcomed actually. Most skaters I know train in the early morning in my area. I highly doubt they sprung it on anyone and everyone has time to adapt. What do I know though. Maybe no one saw it coming and didn’t have time to train and prepare for it. :shrug:

Tigerlily87 · Feb 11, 2018

This is the Olympics. Complaining about start times would be frivolous

Eclair · Feb 11, 2018

10 am in Korea is 8 p.m in the US. That's around the time US nationals were. And there nobody complained about the time.
North American skaters don't even have to change their sleep schedule for it, while for European skaters it's in the middle of the night.

This is the Olympics and the schedule was known for weeks if not months. Enough time to get accustomed to. Maybe some skaters should have gone to 4cc more often to practice skating in another time zone.

CaroLiza_fan · Feb 11, 2018

Eclair said:
10 am in Korea is 8 p.m in the US. That's around the time US nationals were. And there nobody complained about the time.
North American skaters don't even have to change their sleep schedule for it, while for European skaters it's in the middle of the night.

This is the Olympics and the schedule was known for weeks if not months. Enough time to get accustomed to. Maybe some skaters should have gone to 4cc more often to practice skating in another time zone.

It's not the start time for the viewers that we are mainly concerned about. It's the start time for the skaters.

Since you brought up American Nationals as an example of competitions being held at the same time (allowing for time zone differences), I looked at the coloured time schedules for the two events:

American Nationals Practice Schedule
American Nationals Competition Schedule
Olympics Practice And Competition Schedule

In terms of the Senior competitions, most of the official practice sessions for categories on their competition day in San Jose were held immediately before the competition. And since the Senior competitions were all held in the afternoon (or 15 minutes before noon for the Pairs FS), this meant that skaters could keep to their normal sleeping patterns.

The earliest practice session for a category that had a competition segment on the same day was 07:35am. BUT, that was for the aforementioned Senior Pairs FS, which was over by 15:00pm. And they had a whole day in between their segments, which is something that is not happening in Pyeongchang.

In Pyeongchang, there is a 10:00am start time for all the competitions (to simplify things, we are only talking about the first segment on each day for the Team Event). And for all those days, the practice session for that day's competition starts at some time between 06:00am and 07:00am.

Now, bearing in mind that a large proportion of the competitors are from countries far away from where the Olympics are being held, they would be having to deal with jetlag, as well as having to adopt different sleep patterns.

Yes, in theory skaters could try to prepare for the different time zone by adopting different sleep patterns in the weeks leading up to the Olympics. But, most skaters couldn’t really do that given how close the European Championships, American Nationals and Canadian Nationals were to the Olympics.

So, sorry, but I still feel that this 10am start is not fair on the skaters.

CaroLiza_fan

Eclair · Feb 11, 2018

CaroLiza_fan said:
It's not the start time for the viewers that we are mainly concerned about. It's the start time for the skaters.

Since you brought up American Nationals as an example of competitions being held at the same time (allowing for time zone differences), I looked at the coloured time schedules for the two events:

American Nationals Practice Schedule
American Nationals Competition Schedule
Olympics Practice And Competition Schedule

In terms of the Senior competitions, most of the official practice sessions for categories on their competition day in San Jose were held immediately before the competition. And since the Senior competitions were all held in the afternoon (or 15 minutes before noon for the Pairs FS), this meant that skaters could keep to their normal sleeping patterns.

The earliest practice session for a category that had a competition segment on the same day was 07:35am. BUT, that was for the aforementioned Senior Pairs FS, which was over by 15:00pm. And they had a whole day in between their segments, which is something that is not happening in Pyeongchang.

In Pyeongchang, there is a 10:00am start time for all the competitions (to simplify things, we are only talking about the first segment on each day for the Team Event). And for all those days, the practice session for that day's competition starts at some time between 06:00am and 07:00am.

Now, bearing in mind that a large proportion of the competitors are from countries far away from where the Olympics are being held, they would be having to deal with jetlag, as well as having to adopt different sleep patterns.

Yes, in theory skaters could try to prepare for the different time zone by adopting different sleep patterns in the weeks leading up to the Olympics. But, most skaters couldn’t really do that given how close the European Championships, American Nationals and Canadian Nationals were to the Olympics.

So, sorry, but I still feel that this 10am start is not fair on the skaters.

CaroLiza_fan

I don't understand how your point applies to what I said? I wrote, 10 am in Korea is 8 pm in the US. If the North Americans just kept their sleeping schedule as it is, they would have been fine. they didn't even have to adjust to being in a different time zone.
And I'm not talking viewers, I'm talking about the skaters?

one could argue, that Kolyada had to adjust to the different time zone, as 10 am in Korea is like in the middle of the night in Europe. But to be honest, I think he is just not a very consistent skater, no matter what time ...

CaroLiza_fan · Feb 11, 2018

Eclair said:
I don't understand how your point applies to what I said? I wrote, 10 am in Korea is 8 pm in the US. If the North Americans just kept their sleeping schedule as it is, they would have been fine. they didn't even have to adjust to being in a different time zone.
And I'm not talking viewers, I'm talking about the skaters?

one could argue, that Kolyada had to adjust to the different time zone, as 10 am in Korea is like in the middle of the night in Europe. But to be honest, I think he is just not a very consistent skater, no matter what time ...

To be honest, I wasn't sure what you were getting at when you were pointing out the time equivalent. So, I probably did interpret it a different way to what you intended.

Sorry about that.

Although, I still don't think there were be many North American skaters who could keep to their regular sleeping pattern if they were in the final group in a competition that started at 8pm and finished around midnight...

CaroLiza_fan

elle_e · Feb 11, 2018

fullmetalflamingo said:
I honestly don't see the problem. In the lower levels of USFSA and ISI competition, competitors (both kids and adults) routinely have ridiculously early start times in order to get everyone time on the ice for a single-day competition. I've definitely had many competition/travel-to-competition-and-then-compete days that started at 5 AM or earlier.

Ditto. My home club starts comps at 7am, and they usually start with the lower levels which means kids as young as 3 are up and competing at that time. Obviously those kids are not doing quads, but at the elite level, you'd think Olympic competitors would be able to handle earlier starts.

Athletes View on 10 AM competition

ice coverage

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pearly

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Arriba627

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Tigerlily87

Eclair

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